I think that hitpoints in general need to come up some.  Long range beam ships seem silly overpowered right now because getting in the first strike tends to mean blowing up all enemy ships without taking any damage yourself at all.  If the hitpoints were higher, then beams wouldn't blow up your opponents in two shots.  Longer range would be an advantage but not annihilate fleets completely before they can close and get some damage in.  

The numbers that are used to compare ship power just don't mean anything as is.  With higher hitpoints, those damage values become more important numbers.

I'd also love if we could get floating damage numbers in the viewer (as an option).